On Wednesday, a tweet was posted on the official BYU football Twitter account with a graphic noting that eight former Cougars are on Pro Football Focus’ Top 300 Big Board for next week’s NFL draft. The graphic, captioned “Greatness Built Here,” noted that (as observed by the Twitter account WestCoastCFB) that’s the most of any school in the West this year.
WestCoastCFB also observed in its tweet that no players from Utah or Utah State are on PFF’s Top 300 list, which BYU was sure to point out in its graphic (along with Arizona, Washington State and Colorado State).
On Friday afternoon, the official Utah Football Twitter account delivered a not-so-subtle response. In a tweet of its own, the program noted the past success it has had in the draft and “Excited and grateful for our guys who chose to forgo the 2021 Draft and come back to play this upcoming season.”
A graphic was posted in the tweet which notes that although Utah won’t have any players drafted this year barring something completely unexpected, since 2015 it has tied Washington for the most draftees among Pac-12 schools with 26.
Then came some rivalry shade. At the bottom of the graphic, it was noted that Utah State has had five draftees in that same stretch and BYU has had just four.
The two sides are scheduled to play each other on Sept. 11 at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo.